Hi all! This is a fresh piece of gaming industry news from the past week. And here you will find a couple of trailers and games that come out next week.
What’s happened?
Schrödinger Survivor
Passions around The Day Before from the Yakut Fntastic do not subside. This week, anonymous sources from the 3DNews website said that everything is very bad in the studio:
- Constant staff turnover and processing, and unpaid.
- There is a mood of hopelessness and despair in the team due to complete chaos.
- The main cause of all problems is called the incompetence and ineptitude of management. The recent loss of trademark rights is one such example.
- The founders of the studio, Eduard and Aisen Gotovtsev, act on the basis of their views and moods, ignoring indicators and statistics.
- Nothing is planned in The Day Before except for zombies, players and merchants – they are not doing any quest system in the studio right now.
- The game is running “on crutches»and many of the items shown were made for trailers only.
- Fntastic is going to release the game raw (early access), and then finish it in the process.
By the way, before that, netizens noticed the copying of frames from the Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War trailer in the last video and began to develop the theory that The Day Before does not exist:
Apparently, in response to all these accusations, the developers released a more detailed video about the creation of the game. Development of The Day Before began in 2019. Initially, the graphics were cartoonish, and the locations were snow-covered houses in the mountains. But in 2020, all this was abandoned, with an emphasis on realism and larger cities. But they left the opportunity to drive a car, but without destroying the walls with a ram. The video shows quite a lot of gameplay, both early and current at the moment, so the game clearly exists and is being actively worked on. But whether there are problems in the studio and whether the team will be able to bring the project to a worthy release is still a topical question. Recall that The Day Before is due out on November 10th.
Little things
Game Pass has a negative impact on game sales. This information was published by the UK Competition and Markets Authority as part of an analysis of the merger between Microsoft and Activision Blizzard. This data is confirmed by Microsoft employees themselves – their internal analysis indicates that a year after adding the game to Game Pass, its sales are falling. Moreover, even the percentage of the fall is indicated, but it was hidden in the public version of the report, which may hint at a rather significant number. By the way, Xbox CEO Phil Spencer all the time claims the opposite – adding the game to the Game pass only increases sales, as more people learn about the game.
Blizzard has announced the dates for the Diablo VI beta test. Those who pre-ordered the game will be able to play from March 17 to March 19, and from March 24 to March 26, access will be open to everyone. In the beta, the prologue of the campaign and the first act will be available, and the player’s leveling will be limited to level 25. Diablo VI is due out on June 6th for PC, PlayStation, and Xbox. In honor of the announcement, the company showed a new cinematic video:
Embracer Group has shared its financial report for the third quarter. In terms of numbers, everything is positive there: net sales increased by 139%, thanks to which the company earned $ 2.7 billion, despite the failure of the Saints Row restart. But the most interesting thing is that Embracer Group has already five Lord of the Rings games in development. More precisely, there may be more of them, but they plan to release such a number before March 31, 2024. Recall that last summer the company bought the rights to the Middle-earth Enterprises trademark.
Short events
Some news in one line. They are interesting but short:
- Dead Island 2 will be released a week earlier on April 21st.
- Buka has opened pre-orders for the physical editions of Diablo IV and The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom. Console versions of each game cost 7999 rubles.
- The former developers of Titanfall and Apex Legend have opened a new studio – Wildlight Entertainment and are already making an unannounced shooter.
- Firaxis CEO Steve Martin is leaving the company after 25 years. Along with him is leaving Jake Solomon, creative director of Marvel’s Midnight Suns and the XCOM franchise, who has been with the studio for 20 years.
- Civilization 7 is in development.
- In February, Horizon Forbidden West will be added to the PS Plus library, as well as Resident Evil 7 and Borderlands 3.
- VK is investing a billion rubles in its game engine.
- Ubisoft has an improved version of Skull and Bones that the company hasn’t shown to anyone yet.
Even this week we talked about the growth in sales of the PlayStation 5:
And the unofficial voice acting of Hogwarts Legacy:
What have they shown?
Atomic Heart trailer with Jensen Ackles (“The Boys”):
Horizon Call of the Mountain release trailer:
8 minutes of Star Wars Jedi: Survivor gameplay:
The Expanse: A Telltale Series gameplay trailer:
Punch Club 2: Fast Forward Announcement Trailer:
What to play?
February 21
Atomic Heart (PC, PlayStation, Xbox) is a 1955 alternate universe first-person shooter. Thanks to breakthroughs in science, the Soviet Union creates a utopian world where robots help people. But at the presentation of a new revolutionary technology, everything turns into a disaster in an instant, and the machines begin to attack people. You play as a Major with the call sign P-3, who must fight his way through the hordes of enemies to stop the madness and find out what terrible secrets Enterprise 3826 holds.
Like a Dragon: Ishin! (PC, PlayStation, Xbox) is a remake of the samurai action game set in the universe known in English localization as Yakuza. The game takes place in Japan during the samurai era. You play as Ryoma Sakamoto, who is at the center of a coup d’état and is trying to track down his father’s killer. As always in the Yakuza series, you will find a gripping storyline, elaborate dialogues, charismatic characters, action and many mini-games.
February 23
Company of Heroes 3 (PC) is the third part of the real-time strategy game set in World War II. The gameplay will be similar to previous games in the series, but there is also an innovation: a tactical pause has been added to the game for finer unit control. Story campaigns will cover the battles of the “allies” and the “axis” in North Africa and Italy. Later this year, Company of Heroes 3 is due out on consoles.
24 February
Octopath Traveler 2 (PC, PlayStation, Switch) is the sequel to the classic JRPG. You alternately play as eight different characters, with their own goals and dreams, but their fates are tightly intertwined during the game.
Kerbal Space Program 2 (PC Early Access) – the second part of the space simulator with a detailed study of physics. You control the kerbonaut flight center, and your task is to carry out a variety of space missions. Build rockets, test them, launch them into orbits or even to other planets. The sequel will add multiplayer, the ability to build colonies, extract various resources and travel to other star systems. But the content will be added gradually, since so far the game is only in early access.
That’s all, see you next week!